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" Pope Benedict held a rare meeting on Friday with a senior Russian Orthodox Church cleric, who hailed the encounter as proof of warming relations and a step toward greater Christian unity. Metropolitan Kirill, the head of external relations for the Moscow Patriarchate, said after meeting Benedict that he was increasingly optimistic about relations with Rome. 'It is with great feelings of hope that I leave Rome after this visit,' he told Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano after the closed-door meeting."

The seminary statistics, - the ordinations have almost halved in a decade (red), the entrants have remained steady (dark pink) but they don't stay the course as witnessed by the total numbers in the seminaries (light pink). The numbers in absolute terms are pathetic.\

Those who wait for a condemnation from the Bishop will wait a long time. Cathcon understands he has to check everything with his predeccesor. In the most liberal Churches of the Diocese, the predecessor's name is inserted into the Canon of the Mass, along with the presiding bishop. A two headed Diocese- a license to revolt.

Cathcon translation-

World-wide, more and more bishops and the faithful are distancing themselves from Amnesty International as a result of their pro-abortion policy. In Linz, the clocks tick differently: next Monday, the official Women's Commission of the Diocese of Linz has organized with AI a "Political Night Prayer"

The official Women's Commission of the Diocese of Linz together with the "Amnesty International" has organized next Monday a so-called "Political Night Prayer: no to violence against women". In recent days and weeks have been quite a few worldwide dioceses, bishops and parish groups have distanced themselves from the pro-abortion activities of Amnesty International distances, organizing in different regions over recent months an alternative. This is how KATH.NET learned that also in the Diocese of Linz several pro-lifers and Catholics are horrified at the cooperation of the official Women's Commission with Amnesty.

The "Political Night Prayer" to be held on Monday evening at the Martin Luther Church in Linz, according to the Diocese of Linz, is under the direction of Sonja Riha, (seen here on the right, saying goodbye to her predecessor, who has found fame as a stealth priestess.)the women's representative of the Diocese of Linz. Co-organizers include Catholic Women's Movement of the Diocese, the House for Women in Linz, the Protestant Women's Working Group and the Upper Austrian Women's Forum for Feminist Theology and finally Amnesty International.

Cardinal Renato Martino, President of the Pontifical Council, Iustitia et Pax, in June this year, called on all Catholics as a result of their abortion policy not for a donation to Amnesty International. Until a few months ago, within this "human rights" organization, abortion remained a neutral question. Now, it presses governments that women under certain circumstances can kill unborn children. Martino stressed that due to this policy, AI should get no more money from Catholics and Catholic organizations.

See also "Friends of Amnesty- Linz Branch" This has now been taken away and a reliquary of Blessed Franz Jaegerstaetter stands by the altar. The dialogue with AI continues.

The Catholic priest of the small East Polish town of Kunow wants not only to spiritually nourish his flock, but also to teach them a "healthy lifestyle". Every day at 6.00 am, Marian Czerwinski blasts out a hymn from four speakers, each of 100 watts. To date, he has also shown no mercy at the weekend. "The dogs begin to howl in response. The entire town wakes up," complains a citizen.Anyone who complains is ousted Critics of the practice of the priest prefer to remain anonymous, as the priest described his opponents even as "enemies of the community" and read their names out at the Sunday Mass. This is not enough: the priest, until recently, broadcast all the Masses live over the loudspeaker system. "Imagine, you have a barbecue party, and suddenly you have to listen to a Requiem," says an urban resident.Since even the local newspaper criticized the church, he has given up on the broadcast of Masses and the hymn in the morning is now shorter.

More sleep for the lambs On Wednesday, the militant Don Camillo had to respond to alleged disturbed of the peace before court. There was a small victory for the tormented, sleepless lambs of the small town: During the hearing, the priest finally relented a bit and agreed that the Church's early morning call should be moved forward to 7.00 pm. The court has set out the procedure and the people of Kunow must now hope to be awakened at a more Christian time.

Everything can be settled amicably and to be fair to Don Camillo, he was an utterly reasonable charector.

It was a great day for Bad Kreuznach. In the overcrowded Pauluskirche Cardinal Karl Lehmann, Bishop of Mainz and chairman of the German Bishops' Conference, gave a high profile speech about the dialogue of the three world religions, Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

The more than three billion adherents of these religious communities-more than half the world's population-derive their belief in a single God from Abraham, the patriarch of Israel.

"Abraham and his sons-How many roads lead to God?"was the subject of the fascinating evening, which was followed by a debate.

Representatives from politics and the economy, among other people, the Minister of State Ingolf Deubel, and high ecclesiastical dignitaries came to this meeting of the organ building association of the Pauluskirche in Bad Kreuznach.

Host Werner Fuchs, chairman of the association executive, described Cardinal Lehmann in his welcoming speech as the "personification of a Christianity open to the world." In a time when many people were looking for guidance, when at the Frankfurt Book Fair books on new age religion have never been so popular, it was a sign of ecumenism that dignitaries of German Catholicism could come into a church that had just celebrated 450 years of the Reformation in Bad Kreuznach.

After long sustained applause of the many hundreds in the church, the Cardinal is a visibly good mood, took the lectern. He stressed that there is "no alternative to dialogue between Catholics and Protestants". None of his working weeks were without meetings with representatives of the Evangelical Church in Germany. The focus of his presentation was the relationship between the three great faiths, who all depend on the Patriarch Abraham in Arabic, Ibrahim.

Cardinal Lehmann said in Bad Kreuznach repeatedly that Christians, Jews and Muslims in their dialogue should not be lead by the policies of the day but should mutually recognise themselves as equal partners. There seeking to understand on such questions as: What is man? Where does he come from? What is the way? What is the path to true happiness? Is there a "life beyond death"? What is the last untold secret of human existence "? You should set your sights on what the three religions have in common and about this not only talk but also negotiate.

The Cardinal called religious freedom a human right and "rule of the contemporary coexistence of different cultures." Within every religious community, also is found the will to renew and also to reform.

In the discussion that ensued, the focal points were the coexistence of people of different faiths, worries about the strangeness of Islam in everyday life and the future of Catholic kindergartens (which the Cardinal wants to find out how to preserve) and on to ecumenism.

During a reception in the Bonhoeffer House, Cardinal Karl Lehmann signed the “Iron Book” of the city (a guest book which all visiting dignitaries sign).